MMOGs = Massively Multiplayer Online Grind?

One thing that I noticed that most MMORPG Games have a lot of is ‘Grinding’. For those that aren’t familiar with the term ‘grinding’, it refers to the process of mindlessly killing hundreds of monsters just to gain enough experience to level up. I mean, the concept of killing monsters in order to get stronger makes sense, but whoever thought it would be fun to mindlessly kill monsters for 10 hours in order to gain just one level is just plain insane. Unfortunately though, if you play MMOs regularly the concept of having to grind for hours on end to gain a single level shouldn’t be too foreign to you.

I remember when I first started playing Maplestory I didn’t mind ‘grinding’ because it didn’t take too long to gain a level. After I reached level 40 or so, gaining each additional level took 6 hours of nonstop grinding to achieve, which I felt was ridiculous. The earlier levels in the game were actually quite enjoyable because experience gain was moderately paced and the game has a huge community. Maplestory isn’t the only game that’s notorious for slow experience gain, as even newer 3D games like Perfect World, Florensia, 4story and Silkroad Online have incredibly slow experience gain.

Developers need to completely revamp the ‘progression’ system in both pay to play MMORPGs and free to play MMORPGs. ‘Leveling up’ just isn’t cutting it anymore, as the current system rewards whoever mindlessly grinds the longest and that’s just plain stupid. Simply progressing in the game shouldn’t be the ultimate goal of the game. The entire ‘kill monsters to progress’ system is so simple and basic that I’m surprised it’s still so heavily used today. Why gamers aren’t demanding change is beyond me. I guess most people don’t mind grinding for hours on end.